My thoughts on the Phillies season.

Still in San Diego, trying to win a series on the left coast.

The Phillies (65-57) continue their three games series with the Padres (47-75, 5th National League West) with a night game. The game will be played at PETCO Park and will start at 10:05 pm Eastern (7:05 pm Pacific). The Phillies’ starter will be Kyle Kendrick (10-6, 4.74), who is coming off a recent disastrous start against the Dodgers on August 11, where he would only go three and a third innings, giving up seven earned runs on nine hits, in the Phillies’ 8-6 lost. In his only career start against the Padres, he would give up only one run in six innings of work. He will be trying once again for his eleventh win, while hoping to both bounce back from his previous start and for the Phillies’ bat to wake up. The Padres’ starter will be rookie Chad Reineke (0-0, -.–), making his major league debut, as he comes in to pitch in place of the original starter, Chris Young, who has just been placed on the disabled list. He is coming up from Triple-A Portland, where he has gone 5-10 with a 4.37 ERA in 22 games (21 starts), but, in his last three starts, he is 0-1 with a 4.41 ERA. He will be gunning for his first major league win, while trying to see what mischief he can cause the Phils.

The Phillies will be trying to make it two wins in a row while trying to stay close to the Mets after the disaster in Los Angeles. The Phillies have just gotten back Rudy Seanez, Greg Dobbs and Shane Victorino from injuries while Brad Lidge has claimed to have done some work on his mechanics during his enforced rest, and they wait for Pedro Feliz to return from his back injuries. Even with the good news, the Phillies are still waiting for their offense to finally wake up and show itself to be the monster of its pre-season press releases. Of course, that may only happen if the players start to take care of the little things instead of just thinking about hitting home runs and only home runs. But hey, I’m becoming that broken record again. I better stop before I start to stratch the record.

The Phillies are trailing the Mets by a game while they are ahead of the Marlins by two and a half games. They will be trying to see if they can win the series with the Padres with a victory tonight, before trying for a sweep, and end the road trip with a better record than they would’ve expected after getting out of L.A.

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